believer
by Quadrantal
Summary: And then he saw her face, now he's a believer. - Technically, he didn't really see her face, but that was negligible. - /Minato and his thought processes./


**Title:** believer  
><strong>Fandom:<strong> Naruto  
><strong>Characters:<strong> Namikaze Minato, Uzumaki Kushina, Minato's profound and ardent affections | **Minato/Kushina**  
><strong>Word Count:<strong> ~2950  
><strong>Rating:<strong> PG  
><strong>Warnings:** Minato as a love-struck idiot  
><strong>Summary:<strong> And then he saw her face; now he's a believer. (Technically, he didn't _really_ see her face, but that was negligible.) _Minato and his thought processes._  
><strong>Disclaimer:<strong> Naruto is owned by Masashi Kishimoto. All the copyrights associated with Naruto belong to him. No profit is being earned by the writer of this story.  
><strong>Notes:<strong> Because they needed love like WOAH and I was listening to _I'm A Believer_ by Smash Mouth repeatedly for about fifty or so times while writing so this is what came out. 

* * *

><p>In the hierarchy of <em>Most Important Things<em> in Minato's life, _Weapons and Jutsus_ ranked higher than _Girls_. That is to say, he was of the school of thought that weapons and jutsus made more decent companions in battle. After all, there were very few girls who didn't giggle and bat their eyelashes at him, which was all very good for the feminine kind of reconnaissance missions. But while they very flashy and interesting for people like his sensei, they simply were not for him because he preferred going to the front lines himself. Meanwhile, the girls who were on the other end of the spectrum, those who would as much check out their weapons as their nails, were either taken or lesbian. Honestly, it was enough to discourage a boy from girls in general.

And then, Minato saw her face.

Well, to be honest, not really. She was swimming in mud, and if he hadn't seen the bright glare of her eyes beneath a crust of mud on her face and the gleam of the sun against her Konoha hitai-ate, he wouldn't have distinguished her from the logs in the area. Three bandits surrounded her, their weapons flashing menacingly.

Minato briefly debated whether to help a fellow Konoha ninja, but decided against it when he saw her making a hand seal and multiplying into clones. He'd interfere, if needed. From the steely glare in her eyes, he supposed an interruption wouldn't be graciously accepted.

There were three bandits, and three of her. Fair enough, Minato decided.

The clones attacked head on, with a battle cry that made the birds flap away from the trees. Minato sat back against the branches of the tree and watched each fluid swing and parry of the girl. _Duck, attack, parry_. She didn't look like she was fighting as much as dancing, her movements melting from one position to another, adjusting as needed to each strike of her opponent and counter-attacking with double the force. She was waltzing with them, but she was the one in the lead. He propped his cheek against his fist.

Her long hair whipped around her, spraying mud everywhere, and before her clone was extinguished with a puff of smoke by a kunai, one of the bandits was scratching at his eyes and rubbing furiously. She took advantage of this and aimed a kick below his jaw that sent him flying across the clearing to hit against the bough of a tree. There was a sickening crack—a beat to the girl's unknown music. Minato guessed several ribs were broken. The figure slumped to the ground.

She dodged a counter-attack, her hair swinging behind her and shaking off more of the mud so he could see bright, brilliant red. Minato drew in a sharp exhale. She flipped backwards to avoid a blow, her body shaped like a swan's neck dipping its head in a pond. He stood on his feet and rocked on the balls of his feet.

She made several clones again, which parried and attacked against the remaining bandits, occasionally receiving a glancing blow. When one disappeared in another puff of smoke, a frown creased Minato's brow. He sat on his haunches and observed the fight. It didn't look like she was having difficulty; in fact, it seemed like her taijutsu was beyond average. Excellent, even. There was no reason why she couldn't keep up with her opponents.

She had been _lovely_. There was no way for her to slip up now!

He scanned the clearing and spotted her standing against one of the trees, her hands moving in rapid hand seals. It took two beats for Minato to recognize the hand seals. Another to recognize the technique.

He craned his neck and released a slow breath at the sight of the dragon, its sinuous body almost blinding as the sun flashed against its watery torso. The edges of his lips curled up into a grin as the dragon roared and rushed towards the bandits, sweeping them away in a tidal wave of pure force—a fitting crescendo to her dance.

His heartbeat drummed loudly in his ears. He could feel his chakra tingling, and then rising up to whirl around him. He felt like he was aware of the entire forest from the smallest burrow to the largest tree.

Water dragon technique. Without any water in sight. A bright blush spread across his cheeks and he rocked on the balls of his feet, his smile widening. Beauti—

Then the dragon turned around, the graceful arc of its body heading straight towards him.

Minato dispersed it with a swing of his arm and it exploded, sending water gushing everywhere. It wasn't as if he had been hiding, quite the contrary, in fact. And she shouldn't have attacked like that without knowing who she was up against. But there was something, _something_ about a girl who tried to blast him away with a jutsu before asking questions.

It made him feel very, very proud of how he dispelled it. The flick of his arm was kind of cool, in his opinion. Hopefully hers too.

But she was walking into the clearing, with her back towards him. The impromptu rain had washed away the worst of the mud that left her long, red hair to sway freely with her graceful motions.

Minato stood rooted at his spot on the tree branch. He wanted to reach out and touch her hair, wrap his fingers around a lock and feel the texture against his skin. He was itemizing every nuance of every sway when, _when_—

Like slow motion in some romantic cliché, she turned around. Her hair whipped into a fan around her, like the leaves of a tree swaying with the wind, like a blanket that fluttered with the breeze. Minato could name ten different metaphors, each worse than the last, as she faced him with her fist cocked against one hip and an irritated frown marring her—pale and delicate as the moon, flushed with a rosy hue, with dreamy violet eyes that lured deep into her soul—face.

"I'm not here to be ogled by a flake. Get your ass in gear." Then she walked away, back to Konoha.

Minato sighed dreamily.

The last image the senior intelligence officer of Kirigakure saw before he was assassinated was Minato's dopey grin. 

—x—

Of course, Minato could possibly have been exaggerating. She had been walking with a slight limp from a gash in her thigh, and her face was bruised with blood crusted around one nostril. Her hair was in a mess of tangles.

Minato had biased memories, especially when he started quoting from one of his sensei's novels in them.

—But she had been _really exquisite_. 

—x—

To Minato, the trip back to Konoha whirled by as a blur. The week after the mission was a whirling vortex.

His sensei noticed. His team noticed. Who _wouldn't_?

Minato practically skipped to and from the training field where he met his team. When they trained, he dodged their attacks with an odd smile on his face. Obito wasn't complaining, though. It got him more free food than the past years combined. Rin was a bit worried about the state of his finances after the fifth time he treated them out in two days. Kakashi wondered if this was a diversion technique to check out how fit they were even after the seventh bowl of ramen and the tenth stick of dango.

Jiraiya, bless him, knew exactly what the reason was. As to _who_, that was the mystery.

"...Uchiha Mikoto? C'mon, she's pretty hot, eh?" Jiraiya sniggered, and nudged Minato suggestively with his elbow.

A slight crease furrowed Minato's brow, but it smoothed out almost immediately. "Sensei, Mikoto-san is already in a relationship." His tone was serene, like he held the secret to the meaning of life. He was twirling his chopsticks with one hand, the other tucked beneath his chin as he looked out into the street.

"How about that hot stuff in the Hokage Tower, whatshername..." Jiraiya's voice drifted off.

Maybe it was because the street was full of civilians that Minato noticed her right away. She was the only one wearing a flak jacket, with a kunai pouch strapped to her side and a generous heaping of bandages covering the entirety of her right arm and leg. That, or her hair caught his attention like a diamond contained in a slab of kimberlite rock. A refined, red diamond.

Minato didn't know if there were red diamonds, but he supposed they must be the most precious of precious gems, and _very_ valuable — priceless, even.

Jiraiya, who knew his student's moods like the best rooftops to view the woman's hot springs from afar, noticed his sudden intake of breath. If that wasn't a giveaway, then the sudden topple of the chopsticks out of his hands was. He traced the wide-eyed gaze of Minato straight into the narrowed, suspicious eyes of the object of his profound and ardent affections. She gave an inaudible snort—to which Minato's breath stuttered—before disdainfully strutting off to wherever hot-headed redheads like her went.

When he looked back at his student who was taking in every detail like a love-struck idiot, he knew Minato was _whipped_. 

—x—

"...You're chasing after Uzumaki Kushina? _Seriously_?"

"K-Kushina? That was _Kushina_?"

"Came back last week from her...training."

"..._Kushina_?" 

—x—

This new information did little to cool down Minato's affections, but rather fueled it more.

Kushina of the pudgy cheeks, dirty vocabulary and limited jutsu had turned into Kushina of the...well, _this_. Funny how five years could change a person.

Minato had a wide range of memories regarding Kushina, from the pranks back in their academy days to rescuing her from Kumogakure ninja (or rather backing her up, as she used to claim) before she suddenly disappeared to supposedly train under the guidance of Sarutobi Biwako. They hadn't been the closest of friends. She disliked him; that much was apparent after she jabbed a left-hook in his stomach after he rescued (backed-up) her. Meanwhile, Minato held a clinical appreciation of her hair but nothing more. She didn't stand out in anything, and was rather mean to him.

Well, she stood out to him now. Like a sore thumb. But with cracked fingernails and calloused fingertips because that's what awesome kunoichi, like her, had. They could trade stories of their scars, and Minato would listen to her every word with rapt attention. If someone gave him an exam on her, he would score 105/100, even getting all the bonus parts right like what her favorite color was, or what she liked to do before going to bed. 

—x—

The first time Minato actually got to talk to her went like this:

"Guh…?" Minato articulated.

Kushina picked herself up the dusty streets and shot him a dirty look. He couldn't blame her. He was so busy walking—skipping and daydreaming—to the Hokage Tower where he was supposed to meet his team to receive a mission that he wasn't paying particular attention to the street corner and ended up crashing into her.

But he couldn't be blamed too! In his defense, it wasn't easy to talk to her after he just got acquainted with the softer surfaces of her body.

She folded her arms across her chest, cocked her hip to one side and tapped her foot expectantly. Minato, the genius that he was, didn't know what to say. If he _did_ know, it wouldn't have been any use. He was tongue-tied and suddenly awkward in his new haircut and the hitai-ate he was sure was placed lopsidedly on his forehead. He felt like a monkey. A mute monkey. A mute monkey who, not only couldn't communicate, but was also caught doing business behind some bushes.

The wind picked up and carried a faint whisper of, "Apologize to her…"

Minato blinked.

Kushina's frown deepened.

"Apologize to her…" said the talking wind once more.

He opened his mouth then closed it again. Licked his suddenly dry lips. Took a deep breath. Screwed up every inch of courage the famed Yellow Flash had. And said,

"Gurgle…?"

Kushina looked like she was ready to murder him in cold blood.

"You! You useless buffoon…!" She stomped away, a whirlwind of dust punctuating every infuriated step.

_That_ snapped Minato out of his stupor and he stumbled after her. "N-No, wait! I'm sorry! I apologize! Forgive me, please! I am deeply remorseful of my actions…"

Team Minato, which had been hiding in the bushes behind their sensei, just shook their heads. When it came to girls, trust him to get help but still blow it up.

They were late for the meeting with the Hokage, and received a D-class mission in recompense. Minato exited the Tower with a black-eye and a wide smile. 

—x—

"Sensei, look at my new jutsu!"

"Mmhmm, that's wonderful, Obito."

"An exploding tag is headed your way, sensei."

"Mmhmm, just be careful, Kakashi."

"…Have you heard about the return of Uzumaki-san, sensei? She seems very famous."

"She returned exactly a month ago, Rin. Have you seen her? I'm sure you have. Her hair isn't very hard to miss. Actually, if you see her, I don't think you'd miss her. She has the _angriest_ eyes I've seen—though that can be because she was looking at me—and her techniques destroy the training grounds. In fact, we should go see her train next time…" 

—x—

Minato refused to believe he was turning into some creepy stalker, like Obito claimed. He also refused to listen to Jiraiya-sensei's advice, which ran along the lines of using furry handcuffs and lubricant. He was quite content watching Kushina every afternoon, while she was sparring with someone or training by herself. She had a unique style of taijutsu, which more offensive than defensive, and she seemed to prefer this to ninjutsu. Her elemental affinity was water, and she had wicked chakra levels as evidenced by the multitudes of Kage Bunshin clones she frequently made.

On the fifth day of watching her (Minato called it reconnaissance), she turned suddenly from performing a kata and threw a kunai aimed directly at his forehead. He dodged it easily, as well as the shuriken that followed, the subsequent rain of senbon from the tree behind him and the exploding tags hidden in the grass. Unfortunately, he had to jump out of the bush he was hiding in to do so.

"You think I'd be _stupid_ not to notice you there?" Kushina was fuming. Her cheeks were practically _glowing_ in fury. She had to be pretty annoyed at him to set up traps like that.

Minato held up his hands, a placatory gesture to show that he was harmless, eyes lingering on her lips for two beats before meeting her glare head-on. "I-It's not like that..."

Kushina did a hand seal and ten hot redheads—that is, ten hotheaded redheads appeared before him. They rushed at him in unison. Minato had no choice but to adopt a defensive stance.

For the next days, weeks, months (Minato marked the days in a pin-up calendar in his apartment) they—danced around each other, dealing blows and parrying attacks and stealing glances that strayed too long—trained together.

Which, in turn, developed into platonic strolls in the park and conversations on top of his apartment building's roof underneath the stars.

He didn't really bother asking her favorite color but he committed to memory every nuance of her smiles and the varying timbres of her voice. He knew her dreams and her ambitions, as much as he knew that she liked singing tunelessly as she danced under a light spring rain. He knew every shade of her eyes, and what made her lips quirk up or down.

He didn't know when he started being included in her dance, only that he started hearing her tune and it was something only the two of them could perceive. What the rest of Konoha knew was that they made a pretty smashing partnership that decimated enemy ninja standing in the way of their waltz. But this time, no one was really leading and they adapted every sway of their arms and turns of their feet to each other's motions.

What Minato knew deep within himself was that he wanted to brush her hair, sing under the rain with her, and make her laugh.

Make her laugh, most of all. She was transcendental when she did.

If possible, his grins grew even wider until his eyes disappeared within the creases of his cheeks. 

—x—

In the end, it was Minato's team that did the dirty work of asking Kushina out on a date. Of course they did it without his permission, but he was secretly proud of their sneakiness and a bit relieved that he didn't need to do it himself. They also might have been getting help from Jiraiya, which was why he found a pack of condoms hidden under his serving of beef teriyaki.

He was a bumbling, clumsy idiot throughout the whole night who missed the cue to kiss her while she fiddled with her keys in front of her apartment.

_She_ didn't miss the next one, when he lay prone beneath her after being soundly beaten in a sparring session. (She might or might not have flashed him some skin for distraction.)

His euphoria was so contagious, like a ripple in a pond that spread outward, no, like a wave really or a tsunami, that the sight of him _glowing_ was physically, emotionally contagious and there was no one in the village who didn't wish their relationship a happily ever after. 

—x—

Jiraiya concluded that Minato was not only whipped, but head over heels, cross his heart, hope to die _in-love_.


End file.
